


i owe you (this much)

by lightningalwaysreturns



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles, Tokyo Ghoul: re
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 01:41:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15353430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningalwaysreturns/pseuds/lightningalwaysreturns
Summary: Luckily Kaneki had Hide.Fuck, he had Hide.He wanted to make sure, just one more time.





	i owe you (this much)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this back when i liked kaneki a lot more but pls enjoy it anyway :)

Ken, it's okay to feel sadness from loss. As long as you remain kind, you'll find joy again—

A white cloth fell, spinning slowly through the air, onto white flowers below—

And a red Spider Lily (that's death, abandonment, loss) twirled out of shimmering, white sweet Osmanthus (that's modesty, humility, euphoria)—

...

Goddamn those nightmares that always crept in on the fringes of his memories when he went to sleep starved and exhausted the way he had last night.

He knew better and he’d still stumbled into bed, wrestled himself as far out of his clothes as he could with his unhealed body still stiff from dragon scales from throat to fingertips. The rest was history—a steep, suffocating sleep that quickly became a trap.

The room was dark when he woke up, gasping from deep within his chest, and swatted at the hair falling over his eyes into his face.

This was so new—everything happening was so new. Just how was he supposed to deal with all this? He was alone and always had been and even when he wasn’t, he was a magnet for abuse at the hands of those he’d dared to love the most.

Surrounded by the darkness around him and infected by the darkness within, it felt like his throat would close at any moment. He began to pull in deep, worthless breaths, but his heart rate rose regardless, and his head started to cramp too.

Too much… too much… it was all too much… 

“Hey. Kaneki. Look at me. We're okay.”

Simple words, spoken with simple calm, but they closed over Kaneki’s mind enough that he could feel the truth of them.

No, it wasn’t the words he knew to be true, although he did trust them—it was the voice that said them to him, and the fact that, when he turned around to place them, he found Hide.

Hide. Here, with him, in bed, sleepy-eyed and blinking hard at Kaneki in the darkened room.

Kaneki had probably woken Hide with his panic. He was so used to being alone that he hadn’t felt the need to hush the breaths that rushed out of him.

“You’re okay,” he found himself saying, even though he already knew that and had for days. As soon as Amon had told him what Hide had done to free him from the Dragon, a scar opened across his soul that he healed only with the hope of seeing Hide again.

It had taken some time. Things with them always did, these days. But they found each other and agreed to stay together, whatever that meant for the moment, instead of splitting apart like they had been doing all along.

Clearly that tactic wasn’t working. Something had to give eventually. It turned out that “something” was Kaneki.

Luckily Kaneki had Hide.

Fuck, he had Hide.

He wanted to make sure, just one more time.

“You’re okay, Hide.”

And naturally, like the indomitable ray of sunshine that he’d always been, Hide grinned in the dark room, laughing lightly. His scars weren’t beautiful or anything romantic like that, but they were another part of him that Kaneki now loved like the rest of him, and they stretched even redder when did.

“You’re here,” Kaneki said.

Hide shifted closer underneath the covers and placed his hand against Kaneki’s slowing heart. “So are you,” he said carefully.

“I’m sorry—”

“Enough.” He spread his fingers across hot skin, lowering his voice. “There’s nothing to be scared of anymore.”

Kaneki caught tears in his voice even if Hide tried to hide them under cover of shadow. “Are you saying that to me or to yourself?”

“Both, I think.”

“Come here, Hide.”

Before, Hide would’ve laughed, would’ve said something boisterous, but it was testament to the time they had spent apart—as well as everything that had happened in that time—that Hide simply went.

Kaneki’s heart splintered as though it hadn’t been shattered over and over already. For Hide, his heart could always break further.

He took his best friend into his arms and pressed his lips to the side of his face, where the scarring began at the top of his jaw. Kaneki still didn’t remember much about this, but Hide of course swore that it didn’t matter.

_I came after you,_ Hide had said before, _because I wanted you to win, and I wanted to help you to do that. If you pity me, then I just feel uncool._ Then he laughed.

He wasn’t laughing now. Kaneki wouldn’t have minded if he had, but the small sighs catching in his throat were good sounds, too.

24 had never felt like such a long, long time to be alive.

“I'm so sorry I left you alone for all that time. I wish I had known sooner. I should have _looked_ —”

“Kaneki.” Hide stopped him. Hide always stopped him. “Think of me, for a change, yeah?” he said, sorrow in his eyes. 

Kaneki pressed his hand over Hide’s to hold it close as he could. It was the strangest thing, but being with Hide always stirred in Kaneki a deep-seated need to be all tangled up in him, near enough to be inside.

And yet, like Hide just pointed out, he had a tendency to hyperfocus on himself instead of what was actually important: the person in front of him whose love and hard work was the only reason Kaneki was alive right now.

His heart beat under Hide’s. Their eyes met despite the dark.

“Thank you, Hide.”

“I said, _think_ —”

“I understood you just fine.” Kaneki brought his free hand across Hide’s back, warm skin to warmer, and squeezed him close. “I was thanking you for reminding me. You're my favorite thing to think about.”

“Oh. Now I know you're back online. Go to sleep.” Hide buried his face against his hand where it rested beneath Kaneki’s, but Kaneki wouldn't let him hide for long. 

“I love you. I'll prove it to you. I promise.”

Hide's reply came out mostly grumbled, along the lines of “Yeah, well, get a move on already.” He plopped down the rest of the way against Kaneki by releasing the last bit of tension in his shoulders. He mumbled, again, “I've been dyin’, waiting on you to act like you love me.”

“You won't have to anymore…”

If there was more to the response, it lost to the sleepy breaths passing between Hide's lips. He always slept harder than Kaneki before, and he still did now, when he managed to get any.

Kaneki warmed at the notion, feeling how solid and perfect Hide felt in his arms and in his bed and in his life for as long as they could hold onto it.


End file.
